Critical thinking

Flying involves air, open spaces, and effortless being. Humans have difficulty with that. I saw my crow, once, spread his wings and lift off, without a single flap. He wobbled and hovered, then sank back to his perch. No university can teach a fraction of what that moment contained. Sure, you can fill your head with stuff. But can you fly?

A crow does not teach. Certainly not about particle physics. Ironically, it is particle physics. Writ large upon the earth. Cooking? What but a human would have any use for that? A crow shows how life can be fully lived, without the mountain of arbitrary stuff required by humans, to create a poor facsimile of what every crow can effortlessly do.

As you say, a crow is a crow, and a human a human. A crow has no need for abstractions, nor the brain to conceive them, but part of being human is being not-crow, and what is meet for a crow is not necessarily so for a human.

Some prisons are invisible to their prisoners. Not knowing their status, they usually don't take exception to it. But they probably sense that something isn't right. A crow flaps by, outside the window...

Funny how it's a philosophical convention to ascribe freedom to man, but not to animals. The philosopher argues that the animal is trapped in the world of instinct - but perhaps it is man that is trapped in a world without it.

It's always hard to evaluate you own worth, without ego to advise its own pricelessness. Every time I write an essay, I wonder how bad it is. Or speak with a human, only to wonder how badly it went. It does get easier, but not easily.